Arachnophobia
by The Illegible
Summary: The Inquisitor has good reason to be afraid of spiders.


Mahanon was fifteen at the time. Stupid, should have known better. Chasing a nug into a cave close to dark. It could only feed the immediate family but he hadn't killed anything else.

"Kana's son brought home an August Ram," Mother would tell him. "Iona is doing better than you," his brother. And Father wouldn't speak to him at all. If Mahanon failed in his responsibilities, the clan would suffer for it.

So he did the stupid thing.

It was a hot, black place. He didn't give his eyes time to adjust, followed squeals echoing off walls shining with moisture.

There was a drop and a snap. His leg folding sideways. Mahanon sees white before red, fire shooting through bone to teeth like force from a warhammer. The breath has already left him by the time he slams into the ground, skull cracking against stone.

And then, for a time, nothing.

* * *

The air is saturated with spoiled meat, shit, and sweet perfume.

He doesn't know when he wakes, temples throbbing skin sticking iron on his tongue. Mahanon tries to tilt his head, and it's as if someone has pierced him crown to gut. He gags, dry heaves, contracts only to find himself bound.

 _I come for you have brought me vhenan_

Eyes. Small, round, igniting green against the darkness. Arrayed in rows they illuminate the flat visage of a spider.

No. Not a spider.

It has lips like a person, interrupted by two long, fleshy fangs. They quiver independent of one another. Set after set of legs impossibly thin ending in exoskeletal hands surround him.

 _this is not a dream I am with you have always been with you I am yours until you die vhenan_

There are bodies. Bears, wolves, nugs. What might have been a woman once. Her face, like the others, has collapsed into a boneless jelly. She looks like nothing so much as a bladder, once filled with liquid that has been seeping out for some time. Her features melt together.

The stink of it expands in his throat, stopping his voice. Mahanon can't bring himself to swallow the death surrounding him. In consequence every inhale is forced deeper, faster, instinct shrieking he expel everything while nature demands he keep breathing. Certain as the tide, his eyes run with it.

An inhuman cheek brushes his own.

 _know me I am Ruin that takes what is dear destroys in your name in your power vhenan a burden discarded a calling ignored a man twisted by responsibility into broken shadows I am a child of fear oh child of mine_

Four limbs shift, lift him from the ground slow and delicate. He is cocooned to his shoulders leg dipping world swerving he screams a wordless, animal sound vision flooded and indistinct and green.

"No," what follows, "nonononono out I need to o-out—"

 _hush vhenan I belong to all treasured things I belong to your kin to your clan to you existing on my behalf for my protection I shape others into what sustains it is what you were born for_

Lips on his throat, twin injections like molten veridium the universe swimming green eyes on all sides and once again nothing.

Nothing.

* * *

Mahanon wakes in his own bed, Father beside him with salt and pepper hair pulling loose from its knot. Insects chitter in the forest outside. Pailan's sword rests in his lap, tightly gripped.

The world is thick, indistinct. He can't feel his own body. Every shape flickers like candlelight. Mahanon tries to speak. All that emerges is a rasp so soft it doesn't even catch in his throat.

It's enough.

" _Da'len_ ," says Pailan, "lie still." He leans closer, takes his hand. "Your leg is broken and your skull is bruised. Istimaethoriel and Elanna have been treating you but damage remains."

" _Vhenan_ ," whispers Mahanon, eyes straining wide, his grip a vice, " _vhenan_ … where is it? Inside me, I'm going to rot alive father I'm—"

"Hush," says Pailan, "you're safe. We tracked you to a spider's nest. It ran when we arrived."

"It wasn't," his reply, "it wasn't…"

Whether this is truth he hardly knows.

* * *

Sera doesn't believe him.

"You're scared of spiders? All of them? Even little ones?"

It isn't something he can share.


End file.
